Change the Language

Friday, 15 April 2016

Since becoming a cat breeder I've opened myself up to people passing judgement. There is a school of thought where breeders are a vile evil, pushing more kittens into a world that already has too many, for crass profit. That may be true in worst case scenarios, but most breeders I've met do what they do for the love of animals, and more often spend money rather than make it. I read an article today about the the same kind of breeder shaming occurring to dog breeders and it inspired me to share my thoughts on this.

In a perfect world there are no cats homeless. People don't casually cast off inconvenient animals to become strays, leave their pets unspayed or unneutered to breed randomly, or let them outdoors loose to become lost or injured. I'm not naive. The world is still far from these goals. If people strive for them though, surely we will get there someday, right? Then where does the next generation of pet cats (or dogs) come from? If all the breeders have quit and fostered rescues, as I had one lady tell me we should do if we really loved cats, the last rescue kittens would grow up, grow old and be the last generation of domestic cats. There are between 73 and 43 unique and special varieties of felines that would disappear without breeders to continue their lineages.
I'm not saying all breeders are perfect, and there are kitten and puppy mills which are a nightmare and do deserve to be shut down. But I think that carpet condemning all breeders is short sighted. I wouldn't want to give up moments like this.